prompt: write a poem about bridges. A bridge is a powerful metaphor, and when you start looking for bridges in poems, you find them everywhere. Your poem could be about a real bridge or an imaginary or ideal bridge. It could be one you cross every day, or one that simply seems to stand for something larger – for the idea of connection or distance, for the idea of movement and travel and new horizons.

…

queens aya and e— tell why

we walked this sky
because we were not wanted
because we were always targets
of extermination

we left in twos
like all sacred beasts
spinning a path
towards another time

where we cannot be hunted
skinned, broken
lynched, choked of fair breath
expected to look away
from our genocide

where our love is no one’s
path to hell
(that look in the eye
confuses even righteous desire,
or the spark of forever)

we bet on the
miracle of our beautiful
black and queer
and liberated
bodies

we called our ship
Harriet’s Escape
her of rocket science and
witchcraft, dream fuel
and tomorrow
as our only direction

we came here for a future
in which our flesh is precious
in which our children are divine
in which our lives matter

we spun the bridge from
death to life
from supremacy to love
from earth
to obsidian

Write a pastoral poem (a Shepherd or shepherdess on nature and love) (on earth day, a poem about loving a planet)

…

baya is floating
the vertical fields
she sings songs that make
the shmardue wander close
they prance in out round
her feet bare and bright
with golden sand

she doesn’t know earth
she doesn’t long for verdant lush leaf
she knows sunsets last for days

she loves sleeping in the sunlight
she never uses her grav belt
she isn’t scared of flight

i suspect she would be a fighter
if there was a war over these fields
or the black green iceland
whose melting in the sun
is all the river we know

i hope her whole life is this
wandering and learning her stars
rooting into the precious soil
forgetting in her bones the earth i loved
that bloody miracle
leave it to the men

baya is spinning again
upside down, walking the lavender moon
which aya wants to name vula

the earth children run towards and after her
different against gravity
already orienting towards her center

the only thing i want is her safety
for her to be free from our lineage
for us to be far enough away
that we can’t hear the
celebrations of war, the bloodfall
the only thing i want is her
dancing through the air

Our prompt for today (optional, as always) is an old favorite – the erasure! This involves taking a pre-existing text and blacking out or erasing words, while leaving the placement of the remaining words intact.

…

dear e—
after everything,
don’t take me back.
the memories I lost
say we shouldn’t

every day I am thinking of constant of my life
the miracle of baya. us.

my system lights up
kinder, my flesh more pleasurable

another chance.
you would give memories
give us a chance

told that we loved each other,
we’d only know joy
give baya
loyalty

Or maybe we forward
You with half
me with our future

take time
from the heart.
I beg you
consider me, anew, again

yours,
Aya

…

(from)

Dear E—
I understand if, after everything, you don’t want to take me back. Perhaps the memories I lost were the ones which say we shouldn’t be together. But I can’t pretend every day that I am not thinking of you the constant of my life. It isn’t only the miracle of baya between us. It is the way my system lights up in your presence. I feel kinder, smarter, better, my flesh more pleasurable. I want another chance.
I thought if you would give up your memories that might give us a real chance. If we both gave them up again, and we’re told only that we loved each other, I think we’d only know joy for the rest of our days. Perhaps give baya a sibling to devote their loyalty to…
Or maybe we move forward in this way? You with half our lives, me with only our future?
I write this so you can take your time to respond, respond from the heart. I beg you to consider me, anew, again.
Still yours,
Queen Aya

prompt: write a landay. Landays are 22-syllable couplets, generally rhyming. The form comes from Afghanistan, where women often use it in verses that range from the sly and humorous to the deeply sardonic and melancholy…a form of poetry often composed in secret, and rarely written down.

…

my mother says i am all sacred
she whispers this into the blanket that holds me warm

my mother loves the sound of my voice
she follows me with her eyes while i dance in the dust

she tells me that she loves only me
but i see her watch my mother in the field with awe

she says that i am a miracle
but i think the magic is her love which made my life

she begs the gods of obsidian,
whom she created, to carry my heart in their mouths

Prompt: And now for our (as always, optional) prompt, which takes us from 2015 back to the 1700s. After all, it’s the eighteenth of April, which means that today is the 240th anniversary of the midnight ride of Paul Revere! Today, in keeping with the theme of rush and warning, I challenge you to write a poem that involves an urgent journey and an important message. It could historical, mythical, entirely fictional, or memoir-ical.

…

queen aya writes by the sick bed after queen e— begins to heal.

the only journey
on this small planet
with this intimate horizon
is from life
up to the edge of death
to the place where we think
there is no tomorrow
and the journey from that moment
to dawn

the journey happened
when i loosed baya from my body
and my blood
my heart
wanted to go with her

that journey happened
when i knew e— could
no longer hear me
and i wanted to crawl
through the dark corridors of her
to tell her of home

i needed no why
it was the only way

the sun comes from those two faces
mirrors of light
all that i will ever be
my only tomorrows